A ghost cinema and a family home ……. Barlow Moor Road …. 1962

There will be plenty of people who instantly recognise the scene.

We are on Barlow Moor Road, and for many the large impressive building with its tiled faced will bring back memories of the cinema.

For this was the Palais de Luxe, which was opened in 1914, changed its name to the Palace around 1946, and closed  eleven years later.

After which the building was owned by Radio Rentals, and then sometime before 1969 it was taken over by Tesco and traded as such, until 1974.

This I know because of a reference in the planning records which record “Continuance of use of radio and television service centre as supermarket”.

Now given that it was already trading as a Tesco store, I think this might have been the moment when it was sold on to Hanburys, which was a chain of stores across the north which had its origins, when Jeremiah Hanbury opened a small store in 1889 in Market Street, Farnworth, selling butter and bacon.

Forty years later the business was bought by Bolton wholesale grocers E.H. Steele Ltd, and in 1997 the 31 Hanbury’s stores in the north west were acquired by United Norwest Co-op.

But for many it will always be the picture palace, and carried the distinction of being our first purpose built cinema, having seen off the  Chorlton Pavilion and Winter Gardens on Wilbraham Road, which in turn had done for the Picturedrome on Longford Road.

I missed it by just 20 or so years, but have written about it over the years along with all the Chorlton picture houses, and even uncovered the remains of the plaster features above the screen which still survived in the upstairs area of the former supermarket.*

And there will also be many who can reel off the various retail businesses which inhabited the building to the left, and which was once home to Douglas Cook who lived there in the 1940s and remembers, “living in the detached house right next to the cinema, on the corner of Malton Avenue and Barlow Moor Road, no 477, so the cinema wall formed one side of our garden. I went to the Burnage High School for Boys and also the Wilbraham School of Music in High Lane.”

And that I think is enough for now.

Location; Chorlton

Picture a ghost cinema and a family home, 1962-3801.4, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Hanburys shopping bag, courtesy of Catherine Brownhill

*Chorlton Cinemas, https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/Chorlton%20cinemas

See here the villains of the piece …….. trolley buses and motor buses kill off the tram

Now I have no love for the trolley bus ……… and remember too many journeys where I felt ill soon after we boarded.

I think it was a combination of the quiet purr, the smell of disinfectant and seat fabric, topped off by the heat.

All of which makes me feel no compunction about citing them along with the motor bus as complicit in the killing off of the Corporation trams which for more than a half century dominated the way we travelled, in Manchester and London as well as Leeds, Newcastle and Liverpool and heaps of other places.

Here in Manchester as early as the 1920s plans were hatched to do away with the tram, and that plan took a pace during the 1930s, only slowed down by the Second World War.

The trolley bus required no rails which needed maintenance, and the bus had the flexibility that it could alter its routes unhindered by those rails or overhead cables.

I was born in the year that the last Manchester tram ran its last journey and while those in London lingered on a few more years I have no memory of being taken for a ride on one.

So, I can’t testify to how comfortable they were to travel in but judging by the public’s outburst of affection at their demise, and the continuing interest in these stately towers of transport I wish I had done at least one journey in one.

But perhaps I am surrendering to the same romantic tosh that is reserved for the steam railway locomotive.

I never tire of that smell of steam and warm oil but remember mother’s realistic comment about the effect of that plume of dirty smoke and hot cinders on a line of clean washing.

And there were plenty who put the blame for the awful traffic congestion in the wake of a new road scheme in 1938 at the foot of the humble Corporation tram.

The scheme which saw a one-way system around the city centre was dogged by traffic congestion, which both the Transport Committee and the Congestion Committee of the City Council put down to the tram car.

Sir William Davy, chairman of the Transport Committee argued that “The new scheme now appeared to be working fairly satisfactorily, but that there could be no doubt that matters would be considerably improved if they were in a position to dispense with the trams”.*

A position endorsed by Councillor Hugh Lee, chairman of the traffic Congestion Committee, and Mr. J Maxwell, Chief Constable, also emphasised the view "that most of the difficulties with which they were confronted could be traced to the tram cars, [which  included] the nuisance of a permanent tram track in the middle of the road and to the impracticability of establishing roundabouts in the streets where they would be useful because of the existence of the tram services.”

So, there you have it.  I am the first to acknowledge that the economic, and traffic considerations which doomed the tram were the main reasons for their demise, leaving the bus and the trolley bus as complicit in the departure of the tram from our streets.

Pictures; Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1955, m48371, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass and Manchester Corporation Bus, 1961, Glossop, Manchester Corporation Tram, somewhere in the city, date unknown and Manchester Corporation Trolley Bus, 1961 Denton from the collection of Allan Brown

*The One-Way Route @Abolish the Trams’, the Manchester Guardian, June 15th, 1938

The 10-bob insurance plan …….. 16 and out on a jolly in Eltham

It is pretty hard now to remember that there was a time before contactless payments, cash dispensers, and indeed that plastic card which guarantees you can pay for the food shop in the supermarket, buy a bus ticket or get a round in at the pub.

But there was, which meant you were reliant on the cash in your pocket.

Of course, for anyone born before 1970 that is a given, but for me it remains a mark of just how far we have travelled in a few decades.

I rarely carry cash when out, secure in the knowledge that pretty much everything I might want can be sourced through plastic.

But as a 16-year-old in 1966, I kept a 10-shilling note in the back of my wallet which was the fall back plan.

In Eltham, Woolwich and Greenwich that was never a problem, because the bus was cheap and anyway the sensible and cheap solution would be to walk home, leaving the 10-bob insurance plan for a real emergency.

That said, I never needed the plan, and finally chose to spend it on a day in early 1971, prompted I suppose by the imminent arrival of Decimal Day.

On one level it’s not much of a story, but it’s a pointer to how things were different.

And in the same way I still wonder what we did before mobiles, because back then there would be that moment when out in town one of us would opt to go off for an hour.

Today, we are just a phone call away.

But back then we must have had to agree on where and when to meet up, and woe betide you if you were late.

The obvious choice would be the entrance to the Church or the Library, but for reasons I never quite knew, we often fastened on the Electricity Board show rooms, or the record store of the Co-op.

The later I fully understand, but the show rooms remain a mystery, although we did also favour the upstairs restaurant which I think was a Maypole or Liptons.

And here is the cruel disappointment, because I went looking for both the show rooms and the restaurant and failed dismally to find them.  Where once you could pay your bills, take in the latest set of white goods, dinners can choose from a range of Italian dishes.

As for the Maypole/Liptons I am at a loss, thinking it may have been upstairs in that building beside David Grieg which is now Iceland.

Not that it matters over much, because I doubt my ten bob would buy  a lot on the High Street these days.

Infarct, even the humble Mars Bar, which was treat I often bought on the way home at the sweet shop beside the Odeon, would today be beyond my 10-bob note.

All of which leaves me to acknowledge that I have substituted a £ note for my ten bob, simply because looking through the collection there are no ten-shilling notes, only this green one, so that will have to do.

Location; Eltham

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Liz and Colin Fitzpatrick

How we shopped on Beech Road in 1969 and thirty years later

First the apology, which is simply I have lost the names of the authors of this shopping survey, but I hope they won’t mind me reproducing.

It was passed to me my Bernard Leech a few years ago, who I hope can supply their names.

But for now, here it is ……… how we shopped on Beech Road in 1969, and 1999.

And today of course a new survey would reveal the massive changes which have seen retailing outlets retreat to be replaced by a mix of bars, cafes, and restaurants with some gift shops and just the odd traditional shop.

Not rocket science, perhaps or even a remarkable set of observations, but still a bit of history.

Location; Chorlton











Picture; shopping survey, Beech Road, 1969 & 1999

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester nu 40 ......... Stevenson Place

Now it all depends on how you come across Stevenson Place.

From Little Lever Street, 2016

Enter it from Little Lever Street and you pass through a very narrow entry which on a cold day in late December with the light fading fast could be the prelude to a Dickensian story.

On the other hand were you to pass it from Lever Street it is more than likely it would strike you as an unremarkable courtyard with tall anonymous buildings on either side, coming almost to a dead end with just a narrow passage in the line of two properties.

And like all our lost and forgotten streets there will be stories here and a cursory glance at the maps of the mid 19th century show private dwellings which no doubt will give up their secrets when I plunge into the census returns.

But for now they act as a backdrop to the next bit of the project which is to encourage people to come up with their own nominations for the lost and forgotten streets.

From Lever Street, 2016

Now I have shed loads more but it will be fun to see what others have.

Like Cromford Place which Maureen remembered.

She wondered if I had come across it, which I had but only by trawling the old maps.

It was one of those that went under the Arndale, and was accessed from Market Street or Corporation Street, and Maureen went on to tell me of the cafes and some of the posh places that were three.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; Stevenson Place, 2016 from the collection of Andrew Simpson

One hundred years of one house in Well Hall part 22 ........... wishing for the coal hole

This is the continuing story of one house in Well Hall Road and of the people who lived there including our family. *

294, 1973

Now we didn’t have a coal hole or coal cellar in 294, nor from memory did we ever have an open fire.

When we moved into the house in the early 1960s, Eltham was about to become a smokeless zone, and while we could have burned specially treated fuel mother put her foot down, arguing she had had enough of coal in the old house, which started our long connection with gas fires and paraffin burning stoves.

Of course, the whole Well Hall estate had been built without cellars, and so coal would have been brought round the back and carried through the garden of 296.

The coal bunker was still there when we moved in, and dad added a big tank for the paraffin which I think was delivered by tanker.

A coal hole, 2018

At the time I shared the wisdom of mother’s decision, but now I rather think it was a mistake, not least because we have open fires which are set and lit from autumn through till the end of spring and are cheaper to run than heating the whole house.

True we do use central heating, but it sits on the lowest setting and just keeps the remainder of the place from becoming “ice station zebra”.

And in line with the city’s regulations on burning coal, we have always used smokeless fuel since we reopened the fire places back in the early 1980s.

Sadly, while we have a coal cellar, I have never won the battle about reinstating it, which I confess only plays to my childhood memories of the coal deliveries.

Enoch Royle and son, circa 1930s

They began with that series of distinctive sounds which started with the crashing noise as a full hundredweight of coal shot from the bag into the cellar, followed by the slower and longer sound of the coal settling, and were accompanied by the smell, which took a few minutes to rise from the cellar but then lingered in the house for hours.

And like then, our coal comes from the coal man, once a fortnight on a large flat backed lorry, which long replaced the horse and cart.

Fireplace, 2016

In that respect, the continuity of coal deliveries was broken for just a few years, between the last of the old coal deliveries and our resumption which I suspect is not the case on the Well Hall Estate.

In the case of our house, the fire places were blocked up in the early 60s and a full thirty years later were still closed.

The previous owner had not only closed them off but built elaborate hardboard facades, omitting to insert ventilation panels which as everyone knows are essential.

Back then I thought these facades were the height of modernity, but now I like our open fires, although in our case the search for replacement fireplaces took us out of south Manchester and into the east and north of the city where these reminders of our Victorian and Edwardian past were still being ripped out, only to be snapped up by residents in Chorlton-m-Hardy, Withington and Didsbury.

Fireplace, 2016

All of which leaves me to wonder what happened to the fireplaces of 294, but that I guess is another story for another time.

And conclude with that obvious observation of the destructive impact of the old coal burning fire places on the environment.

Location; Well Hall and Chorlton-cum-Hardy

Pictures; Well Hall Road, circa 1970, a coal hole, 2018, and reinstated fireplaces, 2014, Chorlton-cum-Hardy, from the Simpson collection, Enoch Royle and father on Albany Road, Chorlton, cum-Hardy circa 1930s, from the Lloyd Collection

*One hundred years of one house on Well Hall Road,
https://chorltonhistory.blogspot.com/search/label/One%20hundred%20years%20of%20one%20house%20in%20Well%20Hall

Lost and forgotten streets of Manchester ...nu 68 a rare glimpse of King Street in the 1930s

Most of the images we see of Manchester in the late 19th and early 20th centuries were the work of professional photographers. 

They focused on the popular bits and sold them on to the postcard companies.

Then there were the serious amateurs who were often as good as the professionals.

King Street in the 1930s

But there are also the snappers, who captured whatever took their fancy.

Often the images are a little blurred and in many cases have a significance lost in time.

And so with this in mind here is the new series.

Snaps of Manchester is an occasional rummage through pictures most of which were never meant to be shared beyond the family.

Of course the advent of the camera phone has given this a new lease of life.

But for now I am concentrating on old fashioned images and I have my  new facebook chum Sandra to thank for many of these pictures.

Here is King Street before the city planners got rid of the traffic.  Now I don’t have a date for this one but judging from the cars I suspect it will during the 1920s or 30s.

To our right is the old bank which has undergone many conversions and was at one time a music store.

What I like is the way the image captures a quiet day, and while I alluded to dodging cars there is of course little danger of that.

There are few of them and the noise they made would have alerted most people to their passing.

Once we have a date it should be possible to identify some of the shops, particularly those on the left of our photograph.

And with the way these things work there will be someone who can supply a possible date, and others who will remember the shops.

All of which makes for great history.

Now I think I can just remember King Street with cars but like so much of our recent history it is easy to forget the detail.

And that is what makes such snaps all the more useful because they wander off the beaten well trod path and provide us with scenes which the professional did not think as interesting.

Location; Manchester


Picture; King Street circa 1930s from the collection of Sandra Hapgood